“Accepted
in the Beloved!” — What a sweet, soul-cheering declaration of
grace. Though I am in and of myself nothing but sin, I am accepted in Christ. —
Accepted in Christ before the world was made! — Accepted in Christ, though
fallen in Adam! — Accepted in Christ before ever I heard his voice! — Accepted
in Christ when he called me by his grace! — Accepted in Christ though often in
darkness because of my own sin and unbelief! — Accepted in Christ immutably and
forever!
Daily
Sunday Joshua
21-22 Thursday
Judges 8-9
Monday Joshua
23-Judges 1 Friday
Judges 10-12
Tuesday Judges
2-4 Saturday Judges 13-15
Wednesday Judges
5-7 Sunday Judges 16-18
·
We
extend our sincere sympathy to Vicci Rolley and her family in the recent death
of her father and our beloved friend, Bro. James Meadows.
·
I am
preaching today for Sovereign Grace Baptist Church in
·
Bro. Henry Mahan is scheduled to preach for us April 8-10.
·
Missionary Offering next week
Today:
I’m Accepted!
I’m Accepted —
Don Fortner
(Tune: #61 — O the Deep, Deep Love of Jesus —
87.87D)
Justified, pardoned, accepted — Holy as the Holy One!
Blest of God with every blessing, long before the world began!
Loved of God and one with Jesus, who can charge my soul with sin?
Face to face, I’ll see my Savior, He Who put away my sin!
Lamb of God, eternal Savior, I will ever praise Your name!
Worthy, worthy, worthy ever is the Lamb for sinners slain!
Reign, almighty King, forever! Everywhere, Your will be done.
When is finished all the purpose of our God, the Three-in-One,
All Your saints will bow before You, casting at Your feet their crowns.
4
Robert Funk, the
founder of the pretentious Jesus Seminar conferences, has asserted: “The
doctrine of the atonement - the claim that God killed his own son in order to
satisfy his thirst for satisfaction - is subrational and subethical. This
monstrous doctrine is the stepchild of a primitive sacrificial system in which
the gods had to be appeased by offering them some special gift, such as a child
or an animal.” At least one is left in no confusion as to what Funk thinks on
the matter!
Funk's moral outrage, however, is an all-out attack on the central biblical doctrine of substitutionary atonement. Back in the Garden, Adam was told that in the day that he ate of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he would surely die (Gen.2:16-17). From the moment that Adam fell into sin, we have lived with the death penalty hanging over our heads. To sin against God is to be cut off from God - and God is life. That leaves only two options: either we pay that penalty or a substitute does. All through the Old Testament, God prepared His people for the coming of a redeemer who would die for them. The sacrificial system of Leviticus is thus a kind of shadow that points to a greater reality. The priest was to lay his hand on the head of the burnt offering, for example, and it was accepted as an atonement for sin (Lev.1:4). On the Day of Atonement, one goat was killed as a sin offering for the people while the other goat (the scapegoat) “carried away” into the desert the sins of Israel (Lev.16:15-22).
On the cross, Christ became sin (2
Cor.5:21); He was cursed (Gal.3:10). The innocent lamb, without sin, was
represented by the cunning serpent, full of sin (John
The book of Hebrews shows how the Old
Testament sacrifices point to the New Testament sacrifice. They were repeated
but Christ's sacrifice is once for all; they reminded people of sin but
Christ's sacrifice actually takes away sin; they were imperfect shadows but
Christ's sacrifice is the perfect reality. The Old Testament tells of sinful
dying men carrying out sacrifices that could not actually take away sins; the
New Testament tells of a perfect Man who offered up the perfect sacrifice of
Himself, and so won eternal redemption for His people.
What does this mean for us? Martin Luther wrote of the “sweet exchange” between Christ and the sinner, and so he advised one anguished soul: “Therefore, my dear brother, learn Christ and Him crucified; learn to pray to Him despairing of yourself, saying, ‘You, Lord Jesus, are my righteousness and I am Your sin; You have taken on Yourself what You were not, and have given to me what I am not.’” Let Funk be offended; the humble poor believe.
5
Iniquity Laid on Christ — God’s Work Alone
Isaiah 53:6
The Prophet Isaiah clearly
declares that the Lord Jesus Christ, our all-glorious Substitute and Savior,
was made to bear our sins, not just the consequences of them, but our sins
themselves, when he was made an offering for sin. Isaiah 53 (vv. 6, 8-12)
clearly and distinctly tells us that he not only bore our sorrows and griefs,
the consequences of our sins, but our sins themselves.
In this portion of Holy Scripture, our Savior is set before
us as one “despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted
with grief.” He was such, not on his own account, but because he is our
blessed Substitute. Our transgressions wounded him. Our iniquities bruised him.
Yes, by all means, we read, — “Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried
our sorrows.” But he carried more than our griefs and sorrows. He was made
sin for us. In fact, in verse 10 Isaiah uses the same word used in Leviticus 5
when he says, “thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin.” Literally,
it means, “Thou shalt make his soul guiltiness”.
In these solemn transactions our Lord Jesus stood as the great Surety of many. As debts are transferred from the original debtor to the surety, so our sins were transferred from us to our great Surety, our sinless, spotless, holy, harmless, undefiled Redeemer, and were made to be his. He bore them and he bore them (received, accepted, took, and carried them) freely, willingly as our beloved Surety. And as the surety must pay the debt, which by transfer becomes his own, so Christ was stricken and wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities, and endured all the wrath of God to the full satisfaction of justice to make peace for us!
It was the Lord God himself,
and no one else, who laid our iniquities on his darling Son. I cannot lay my
debts on another. The debts are not owed to me. The only one who can lay my
debts on another is the one to whom the debts are owed. And we cannot lay our
sins on Christ. Only the holy Lord God, against whom we have sinned, to whom
the debt is owed, can do that.
As none but God the Lord
could lay sin upon Christ, so none but he could prepare a body for his darling
Son in which to bear our sins. Our Savior said, as he was coming into the world
to save his people from their sins, “a body hast thou prepared me” (Heb.
10:5). His was not merely the body of a man, but a divinely prepared body,
steeled, supported and upheld by the eternal God specifically for this purpose,
that he might do the will of the triune God, by which all his chosen are
redeemed, sanctified, and made perfect (Heb.10:10-14).
How we ought to admire and
stand in grateful awe before the boundless love of the triune God for us, who “hath
laid on him the iniquity of us all!” God the Father loved us, and gave his
Son to be our Sin-bearer. God the Spirit loved us, and prepared a body in which
the Son could and did bear our sins. God the Son loved us, and “bear our
sins in his own body on the tree.”